How to practice belly breathing with your child

Practicing a skill for calming down big emotions

Apr 08, 2026

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Last week, we recommended Tummy Ride, which highlights the concept of belly breathing — the idea that taking deep and slow breaths low in the diaphragm can help us make big emotions smaller and help us feel safer when we are stressed (read that post here). This week, we share some resources to try belly breathing with your kiddo at home, and answer your real-life questions about calming down big emotions.

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How to Talk About Belly Breathing with Your Child
We want to make practicing belly breathing feel as approachable as possible. Here are some ideas of how you can talk to your child about belly breathing. We’ve included some comments to help you understand why we recommend these steps.

We can practice belly breathing when emotions are high, but we wouldn’t want to teach it for the first time when the kid is activated. We recommend introducing belly breathing first to your child when you’re both relaxed — and doing a short practice daily as a family to help the skill become muscle memory!

Questions From Our Community About Belly Breathing

Q: What can I do if my kid doesn’t want to practice belly breathing? How do I get them to use it when they are getting upset or frustrated?

A: What an excellent question! One of our go-to parenting skills for helping encourage kids to practice any behavior more is specific praise. To encourage belly breathing (especially when your child is stressed or frustrated), you can gently prompt:
“Now might be a good time to practice some belly breathing. Let’s try taking a deep breath together, low and slow in our bellies.”

As soon as they start, heap on the praise! The key to shaping kids’ behaviors through specific praise is to name the specific behavior you want to see more of:

“Excellent job, you’re taking such a deep breath.”
“Great work! I love that you’re slowing down and taking a belly breath.”
“Awesome job belly breathing, let’s take another one together.”

Specific praise works well because kids care a LOT about your attention. Giving your child specific, positive attention for a behavior you want to encourage — like belly breathing — reinforces the behavior. The more you praise the behavior, the more they’ll be encouraged to keep doing it. So, try to “catch” them each time you see them belly breathing and offer specific praise right away. Check out our post and how-to guide on specific praise for more examples!

Another powerful tool is modeling. This might look like co-regulation (you calming your body to help them calm theirs), or simply showing your child what you do when you feel stressed: “I am feeling stressed — I need to take a deep breath,” or “It looks like Daddy is going to pause and do some belly breathing.” Kids are always watching and learning, so your modeling helps reinforce belly breathing as a great skill to use when feelings get big.

Go deeper on the science and practice of belly breathing:

We reviewed a bunch of different belly breathing videos, and our favorite one is this one from Nemours Health. We like that it shows how to use belly breathing in close-up detail with a real teen — the close-up camera shots let you watch the belly expand during an in breath and contract during an out breath. We think this is the best video for parents to watch to learn how to teach belly breathing!
… but if you want to get your kiddo excited about belly breathing, we think this video from Sesame Street is the most fun option.
This “breathing balloon” online activity can help kids learn to do belly breathing as they watch a balloon inflate and deflate.
This article from the Raising Children Network has some nice ideas on using belly breathing with kids with developmental disabilities.
If you want to go even deeper on the science behind belly breathing — and how breathing can affect the parasympathetic nervous system — check out this Scientific American article.

Do you notice your child experiencing big emotions or signs of body activation? Have you considered trying belly breathing with them? Share your experiences or questions about belly breathing in the comments!

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